Domingos Alvares Chapter Summary

The style that James Sweet convey in his book, Domingos Alvares. African Healing and Intellectual History and of the Atlantic World, is by providing multiple perspectives of people who had an interaction with Domingo Alvarez in the Atlantic World. . Within the seven chapters, this multilayered perspectives give a to the circumstances that led to Domingos Alvares arrival in Lisbon, the accusations of witchcraft, and the banishment to Portugal. The perspectives of Ignacio Correa Barbosa and Leonor de Oliveira convey the connection the healing to exile and slavery that were pertinent terms in the Atlantic World. In Dahomey and Obscurity chapter, Sweet contextualizes the effect of Dahomian and Portuguese government's power in turning Domingos

Alvares into slave and exiled . The weakness of his narratives is alluding to hypothetical scenarios various times throughout the book, which convey Sweet’s inability to be an authoritative scholar on Domingos Alvares.

If his story was reformatted into a historical fiction novel then his authority on the Atlantic World would be strengthened.

In order to tell the story of Domingos Alvares, the book is consisted of ten chapters of which seven focus on the narrative of Alvarez being a slave then a freed man. His narrative includes the journey from Dahomey to Recife, Brazil through the middle passage. Alvarez became a slave of Jacinto de Freitas de Silva. Under his master, Alvarez, worked at Casa forte, a sugar engenho that had existed since the mid 1500s. His healing abilities were due to him being a voodoo priest. Once his healing abilities were known, Alvarez was able to heal the slaves of Casa forte and other people because of Freitas control over him After several years, Alvarez was sent to jail and sold to Manuel da Costa Soares who was unaware of witchcraft / fetish accusations by Freitas. With this new owner, Alvarez was taken to Rio where two of his former acquaintances , Caetana Marca da Espírito Santo, and Thereza Arda, lived . By spreading rumors of his healing abilities, there were able to find him a new master , Manuel Pereira da Fonseca. In less than one year, Alvarez

was sold to Jose Cardoso de Almeida because Fonseca was restricting his movements. Under Almeida ownership, Alvarez was given permission to heal within the Rios countryside region. Because of the level of the trust that Almeida had in Alvarez, he was given a public house to heal others. In 1737, He becomes freed man but continues his practice of healing other Five years later, Alvarez is accused of witchcraft , and is reported to the Portuguese Inquisition by his neighbor, Ignacio Correa Barbosa. As a result of this , He is sent to Lisbon to stand trial on September of 1742 which lasts eighteen months. Once his trial, was over , he is publicly embarrassed in the Auto de Fe and sent by the Inquisitors to Castro Marim, Portugal to convey penance to Alvarez . Out of economic sustenance and fear of the inquisition, Alvarez ran from Castro Marim to various cities such as Faro, Taro. But this was to no avail, as he was caught, questioned, whipped, and humiliated again in Evora’s Auto de Fe. He was exiled for four years to another town- Braganca and this is the last record of Domingo Alvarez.
By including the perspectives of Leonor de Oliveira and Ignacio Correa Barbosa, Sweet conveys the connection of slavery and exile to healing that was endured in the Atlantic World by Domingos Alvares.

Leonora de Oliveira was the mistress of Domingo Alvarez once He arrived in Rio. She convinced her husband to buy Alvares from his former owner so she would be healed from this ‘gre at healer’. For some time he was able to heal part of her ‘maleficios’ and was treated fairly. But as soon his healing techniques were not working, his freedom was limited. As his owner, Leonor treated him like a’ feiticeira’ because of the cures were not working. Because of this, his ability to move around was dictated by the commands of his mistress and her husband. It also caused Alvarez to seek revenge on his mistress and cause Alvarez to feel different, like an outsider. He eventually was sold to Jose Cardoso de Almeida, who gave Álvares his freedom . With this freedom, he set up a public house near Ignacio Correa Barbosa in Rua da Alfândega. His presence in Rua da Alfândega caused Alvarez to be ‘a great scandal ’ due to the street association with the catholic community. Ignacio Correa Barbosa , a resident in the neighborhood, saw it as his mission to ‘denounce ‘Alvares to the secular justice officials and the Inquisition. By denouncing Alvares, this caused society to label him as different kind of healer from the Catholic norms of healing. By clinging to his practice of healing, this

caused physical and emotional separation from his culture.
Within Dahomey and Obscurity chapter, Sweet conveys that the power of both Dahomey and Portugal played in Domingos Alvares enslavement and exclusion. In Dahomey, Alvarez was a Sakpata priest who gave offers to a vodun to help cure people from their sickness or wounds like a doctor. Dahomey in the 18th century was a time where many people were suffering from wounds and would come to the priest for healing. As a result the priest gained political power in the region. Because ‘they made too much trouble ’, the King of Dahomey sought a way to gain back his power in his kingdom. In order to remove the Sakpata priest power and threat , He removed the priests from Africa by selling them to the Portuguese. Alvares was able to regain his life as a healer to the community he lived in for a few years until the effects of the two inquisitions made him a permanently exiled. After his first exile in Castro Marim, Alvares notoriety made it difficult for him to connect with clients and earn his living. This inability led him breaking the terms of his punishment and another exile to Braganca. Despite Sweeney’s efforts, there are no records mentioning his arrival, or death after this event. It is clear statement that asserts that the because Alvares did not conform to the rules set by the Portuguese government, then he was no longer worthy to be remembered to society as a form of damnatio memoriae - his image of his life were no longer seen to the World.